Library storytimes and programming for babies, toddlers, school-aged children and tweens!

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Tropical Vacation Storytime

This week in storytime, we took a tropical vacation! I had really high hopes for this storytime: it's the middle of the session and typically attendence is good. But the weather and low temperatures made for an abyssmal week attendance-wise. For the first time ever I had ZERO people show up for my Wednesday morning 10 AM storytime, and I usually have around 30 attend. But the roads were terrible, and I can understand not wanting to go out in bad weather!

We had fun regardless (even if I do have a ton of leftover crafts!), and it was fun to do a non-traditional storytime theme, especially in the dead of winter! We talked a lot about going on vacation, riding on airplanes, going to the beach, etc. This week's books that we read were:

For my extension activities I did a "5 Little Seashells" story tube (I don't know why these pictures are turned sideways, they aren't on my computer and I can't seem to be able to flip them in blogspot, sorry!). For my story tubes I always have 5 little somethings, and then count down and flip the card as they go away. We also did a big wave motion with our arm to wash the seashells away.

“5 Little Seashells”Five little seashells washed up on the shore. Along
came a wave and then there were four.
Four little seashells as happy as can be. Along came a wave and then there were
three.
Three little seashells all shiny and new. Along came a wave and then there were
two.
Two little seashells lying in the sun. Along came a wave and then there was
one.
One little seashell left all alone, put it in your pocket and take it home!

I also did this flannel board:

“5 Little Ice Cream Cones” (sing
to 5 Little Ducks)5 little ice cream cones standing in a row. (hold out 5 fingers)
Each with sprinkles & a waffle cone. (Make
a cone with one hand and a fist for the scoop with the other)
Out came the sun and it shone all day, (make
a circle with your arms to be the sun)
and one little ice cream cone melted away. (melt
to the ground!)

Additional songs/action rhymes/fingerplays included:

Dancing to The
Wiggles “Wake Up Jeff” #5 Having Fun at
the Beach and doing the actions along with the song.

Action
Rhyme:“Airplane”
The airplane has great big wings (arms
outstretched like wings)
It’s propeller spins around and sings, “Vvvvvvvv!” (make one arm spin in front like a propeller)The airplane goes up, (make arms go
up)
the airplane goes down, (make arms go
down)the airplane flies high all over the town! (pretend to fly and spin around in a circle)

Action Rhyme: “Swimming”
Swimming in the water cool and bright (pretend to swim)
I kick my feet with all my might! (kick feet)
And when I’m tired I turn and float (spin and hold arms out)
Pretending that I’m a boat! (rock hands)
I like to hold my breath and dive (take a breath and bend down)
I swim beneath the water and count to five (count to five) Wow! What a
dive!

This week's craft was a fun and colorful lei necklace made with flowers from the Ellison die machine and large green paper "beads" that I made with construction paper so they would be easy to string on with little fingers.

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All in all a fun storytime, but I must admit I am looking forward to Valentine's Day next week and hopefully some better attendance! It is always more fun with an actual group!